After The Ending
by Bonded By Blood
Summary: Based off the storyline of each episode as they air. Enjoy!
1. Let's Boot 'N Rally

The moment had finally come and I was about to stake the man who had taken my family away from me in cold blood more than a thousand years ago. A sharp chill of vengeance ran down my spine, but it was the critical rush of unattainable adrenaline that brought my fangs out. Ultimately, as I looked into the eyes of Russell Edington, I realized this was the end. If I somehow managed to kill him, the true death would come of me anyway and it was all thanks to the Authority and their bullshit iStake mechanism now strapped tight against my chest. The sheer thought sickened my core. Gathering every ounce of strength in me, I drew back the oversized stake; my sight set straight for Russell's dead, unbeating heart. He smirked at me, grabbing the end of it before I could pierce his chest. My eyes ignited with fury.

"Don't seem so surprised," Russell said to me with a devilish grin etched within the lines on his pale face, quickly rising from the bed in which he laid.

"Fuck you!" I snapped back, still grasping the stake and investing as much force as a thousand year-old vampire could against the resistance of an ancient madman. Still his seniority paired with how much blood flourished through him had overpowered me indefinitely, and with a brisk snap of his fangs, I was thrown across the room. Reluctantly, the hard concrete wall was enough to stop me. When I looked up, Bill was fiercely running toward Russell, stake in hand.

He shouted something crazed and deafening, but failed pathetically to shish kabob Russell even more so than I did. Standing with eyes wide, I watched as Bill was flung carelessly into the hallway and just like clockwork, Sookie screamed out for him. How typical.

I bared my fangs at Russell who looked happier than a fat kid in a bounce house and immediately went in for him again. He grabbed one arm and slung me against a trio of old metal filing cabinets. I roared furiously, vamp-speeding back to him. He seemed so casual upon gripping my shoulder and pinning me against the wall, his eyes locked dead on mine.

"You're a fool for believing you could ever overpower me, Viking." Then he chuckled in my face.

"Maybe I am a fool, but one way or another, you're going to fucking die!" I snarled, pushing myself forward, but Russell jerked me up and sent me flying into the hallway where the concrete cracked open my skull and momentarily rendered me incoherent.

Sookie jerked her head around, calling out to me in concern and seconds later, a bright flash of white light left her hand and shot straight for Russell. With ease, he dodged it and brought himself close to her. She walked backwards tensely until her back was up against the wall, almost shocked that her faerie powers had failed.

I begun to stand as the gash in my head sealed itself. My eyes focused solely on Russell as I retrieved my stake from across the room, learning Bill had almost the same idea. Together, we cautiously walked toward Russell, but once I'd heard his fangs drop, I grabbed his neck at full speed and savagely threw him to the ground. He growled and dug his long, bony fingers into my arms, so easily pulling me away from him. I struggled to keep a firm grip on his throat, but the tension that held tight between us continued fueling the fight and therefore him.

"You're weak, just like your father," Russell spat out at me.

I snarled. Sookie shouted my name and I looked back. She was holding the stake I'd dropped during the scuffle. Releasing Russell from my deadlock grip, I raised my arm just as Sookie tossed it in my direction. I caught the stake and turned back to Russell, but he was already standing above me and put a firm grip on my shoulder. Suddenly, Bill came from out of no where and shoved him backward. A second later, I was at the base of Russell's neck and jawline, stake in the opposite hand steadily hovering over his heart. Just before I could draw back, the sound of a dozen footsteps filtered in through the hallway behind us. They were practically all marching in synchronization, so there was no doubt as to their identities.

"Freeze, Northman! Do not stake him!" one of the Authority's guards commanded as others like him surrounded the three of us.

I did not comply and instead held the stake against Russell's chest, my fangs bared. Bill glanced over, giving me a pleading look. My nostrils flared in outrage, but before I even had a moment to make a decision, I was snatched up and silvered by several men behind me and carried back the Authority's underground prison, possibly returning as a slave to do more of the Guardian's bidding.


	2. In The Beginning

As Godric appeared, he spoke words potent enough to shake me of whatever power the blood of Lillith had over me. With my mouth dripping in the life of the empty human that laid beneath me, I felt compelled to stop what I was doing and look up. Soon, I saw for myself that the fucked up concoction I'd drank tonight with the Authority's chancellors had forced me into a hazy stupor, allowing absolutely no control over my own actions, and pulled me into a deep pool of unfathomable hallucinations. I was undeniably horrified, for the naked woman who had risen from the stage before us as if it were a lake, no longer existed to my visual knowledge. Nora's view on things seemed very different as she look at thin air in confidence that a being of sorts stood before her.

My attention then turned back to Godric for further guidance, but as quickly as he'd came, the glowing figure of my late maker had vanished. Filled with a new sense of pride in knowing what must be done, I wiped my chin with the back of my hand and relinquished myself from atop the blonde lady of whose blood I'd mindlessly been feeding on. Feeling strong and full of new purpose, I moved toward Nora who continued staring senselessly up at the nonexistent Lillith. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, snarling in apparent protest of her behavior. With furrowed brows, she looked at me; an angry expression drawn out on her mouth. Making a feeble and failed attempt to jerk away from me, she struggled against my stronger sense of control, trying to pull back.

"No! No! Let go of me! Lillith commands us to drink!" she shouted, trying to pull out of my grasp.

I was far too strong for her to resist and she knew it. I brought her to face me, hoping she would snap out of the madness the blood we'd so ignorantly drank caused us to have, but she was stubborn and begun jerking away from me yet again.

"Lillith is of our imagination, Nora!" I roared straight into her face, trusting she would see, as I had, the error in her thinking. But when she remained unshakable in her belief, spitting the word 'blasphemy' at me, I grasped her arm tightly and calmly dragged her across the room in search of Bill.

Shortly thereafter, I found him sitting comfortably at the bar draining a woman in her early thirties who overly smelled of strong liquor and department store perfume. He ignored my presence, but when I preceded to take away his meal, he growled viciously at me as if instigating a fight. I rolled my eyes nonchalantly, grabbing the back of his neck in domination and shoved them both out the door and into the busy streets of New Orleans.

Much to my amazement, the bright lights and crowded pavement came as a relief to my heightened senses. I sucked in a chest full of air hoping to distract myself from the weight of the heavy task before me. Dragging Nora and Bill off to the side and down a dark alley, I shoved them both against a brick wall and held them there. They seethed at me with fangs drawn out like a snake and still clearly under the blood's spell, but once my hands had left their chests, I slapped them bitch-style back into the present reality.

Bill wavered for a moment, holding the side of his cheek with mouth open like it actually had hurt him, and Nora just stared at me, rapidly blinking her deceitful little eyes.

"Do you feel better now or shall we try this again?" I said callously, a hint of sarcasm in my stern voice.

Nora carefully shook her head with pursed lips. I then looked at Bill, raising a brow as I awaiting his answer. His expression was meaningless at first, but it quickly turned into a frown once he was fully restored to a conscientious state of wellbeing.

I nodded once in satisfaction that they were once again capable of acceptable thinking. "Let's blow this fucking town."

I motioned toward the open ended street, and without a second more to lose, we shot out into the night like a rocket's red glare.


	3. Everybody Wants To Rule The World

The word was final. Bill Compton was a traitor. As the guards forced my hands behind me, cuffing them in silver and shoving me off into the back, I glared vengefully at him. There were several desires I wanted to fulfill in this shy window of time, one being where I rammed my foot up Bill's tight ass, but instead I resisted my unwise temptations for lack of better judgment and let the bastards carry me away.

Yet again I found myself caged behind silver bars. Strangely, I felt at home here. The moment of realization was deafening, but what was one to do when met with defeat? Taking a seat against the concrete wall, I folded my hands and stared blankly into oblivion hoping another brilliant plan would come to me. My thoughts ran wildly like fire against the driest leaves, sparking an unfamiliar state of happiness inside me. Furrowing my brows for all of half a second, I soon begun remembering things I'd tried so ambitiously to forget.

Her skin was softly as she gently grazed her fingertips over the hardness of my arm. It indescribably sort of...tickled, for I had never felt such a sensation as this before. The light that illuminated from everything she was beamed brighter than any lighthouse, and I knew she'd become a beacon of hope for my heart of an everlasting darkness.

"When I said 'I love you,' I meant it, Eric," Sookie sweetly whispered into my ear as she combed through my hair with her delicate fingers. "Promise you'll come back to me. I fear I am not safe alone."

Swallowing hard to relieve myself of a parched throat, I opened my mouth to reassure her, but was interrupted by the annoyance of Nora's speaking.

"Hello, brother," she said softly, smiling with a peculiar and wicked charm about her. "That was a very stupid thing you attempted earlier. But Lillith forgives you for it."

I rolled my eyes carelessly, not bothering to look over at her. The ridicule spilling from her lips in words of pure poison was enough to make me long for a chance my hands could grasp tightly around her throat.

"Ignoring my presence won't help win you points toward your freedom, Eric."

Snarling, I turned my head up, glaring angrily at the woman who still claimed me as a sibling even after all she had done to betray that bond (and the right to claim Godric as her maker.) "There is no freedom here! If I say Lillith doesn't exist, I get locked up like a rabid animal awaiting execution, so get it over with already because I'm sick of waiting for my true death to come while you and "Lillith's" blood-crazed army are out creating a war with the fucking humans!"

Nora blinked rapidly at a few times, clearly taken aback by my heated shouting, but not a drop of blood left in my body gave a damn. Not anymore.

"Salome has spared your life when she could have just as easily—"

Vamp-speeding over to the bars which separated us, I lifted a finger and pointed it judgmentally at her with a cruel shade of resentment on my face. The words that next came from my mouth were spoken with bitterness and as much truth as I've ever given at a single point in my existence. "You are a disgrace and I HATE you. Now get out of my sight because you're making me sick."

Nora lifted her face in shock, lips parting slightly as if to speak, but unable to bring forth the words. Closing her eyes for a moment and shaking off my former comments, she pulled a key from the pocket of her blazer and unlocked my cell door. With a grimace, I watched the door open and let out a small sigh. I then looked at Nora who in turn glanced back and swayed her arm forward, giving me grace to step out.

"Keep your hands in sight and I won't need an excuse to secure you," she advised.

My jaw tightened, but I took a few steps into the hallway with Nora where she scanned me over once and motioned toward the exit at the end of the corridor.

We walked together in near synchronization, but it was no pleasant afternoon stroll. The tension between us was tight, thick and ever-growing. Soon, we would have a wedge driven so deep between us, there would be nothing left worth saving. I somehow felt the same about Bill. In the beginning, our rivalry protected Sookie at whatever cost we had to pay, but now he was a deviant tyrant who felt more at home with the illusion of a higher god than the position he had been in previously as king of Louisiana.

Nora showed me into a room with only one other door, and immediately two men in Assassins Creed jumpsuits entered, one of which carried a set of intravenous silver binding cuffs. I knew what was coming next, so I waited rather than fighting them. Upon approaching me, both men grasped me by my forearms and jerked my wrists forward, fastening the manacles to me and locking them in place. In my head I was pleading, "Don't press the—"

A needle from inside the mechanism shot into the veins on either wrist, injecting me with liquified silver. I roared in agony, my eyes clenching closed. I shook from the inside-out and instantaneously felt my entire body tighten and become weaker with every passing second. Before I hit the floor on my knees, I was compelled to looked up. Bill suddenly appeared before me in a black button up shirt and seamless business pants like he was the king of anything, and that pissed me off.

"I hope you are enjoying your new life full of purpose and meaning," I remarked with sarcasm, giving him a stern look of disgust. "But let's not forget to mention how selfish and ruthless you have to be in order to live it. Praise Lillith for that one!"

Just as if someone had cracked a brick across my face, Bill's fist met my jaw. I spat out a handful of blood onto the floor and slowly raised my hands to snap my jawbone back inline with the rest of my skull.

"Do not mock Lillith, Northman!" Bill scolded with true belief in his words.

"So we're on a last name basis now?" I asked with furrowed brows, but Bill did not answer me. Instead, he motioned toward the guards and within a moment, they quickly left the room.

"I have a present for you," Bill stated, sparking a slight smirk on his unchanging face.

"I can hardly wait," I answered back sarcastically, throwing my head back to stare up at the ceiling.

A moment or two passed and soon I heard several sets of muffled footsteps shuffling down the hallway. The door swung open and in popped the two guards from before, but this time they carried an unconscious blonde whose head dangled lifelessly toward the floor. A twinge similar to a migraine begun pulsing at the base of my temples, possibly as a result of the silver in my veins. Bill nodded once and they dropped the girl onto the floor. I watched them with caution as they left moments later.

Looking at Bill, I was completely unsure of his motives, but he carelessly grabbed my hands, unlocking the cuffs that bound me.

"Go ahead. Have a drink," he encouraged me.

The girl groaned, no longer lost to incoherence. I stared at the tangled mess she was on the floor; her hair was long and covered her face completely. I moved toward her, still on my knees as brushed back the hair from her face. My eyes widened and every noise, every negative emotion and every urge I had to feed from this human stopped just as Sookie's weary eyes fluttered open.


	4. Sunset

I had miraculously managed an undetected escape with Nora, who had come to her senses and begged my forgiveness just hours beforehand.

As hard as I tried to hate her and as much as it staked my heart when she spoke Godric's name in vain, she was still my sister. When we shared the same flesh, it was because we were of the same maker, and never once did it feel like incest. Now we were running from a group of psychopathic vampires who wanted nothing more than to get high and feast on the blood of humans. Although I may have willingly gone with that plan at some point in my debatable life, I had enough sense now to realize siding with them was suicide.

As I sat with feet dangling off the edge of a hundred story building, I was soon flooded with all I'd left behind in what seemed like a former life. First, there was Pam, and although I had released her from the binding ties of our blood, my undead heart still longed for her good company. Although I rightly knew she was capable of managing a maker's lifestyle all her own, there was still a fracture of embedded worry deep within me. With all that had happened, there came no doubt both she and Tara would be caught in the middle of all the present chaos, and it baffled me still to think of how this all started.

A few blinks later, Nora was by my side. With feet bare, she fearlessly slung her legs over the ledge and folded her hands delicately in her lap with a roguish grin.

"You saved me, you know," she began, her eyes wide and honest. "I knew everything I was doing under the influence of..." She swallowed quite hard, her nervousness becoming apparent.

"We don't have to talk about this," I assured her with my hand at her chin. "I forgive you."

Nora winced, her eye twitching a bit before a cool stream of blood began pouring down her face, and she begged for surrender through sobs much reminding me of Sookie, only different—more humanly. As I coddled Nora, the sweet memories of my better days began to flood me.

Where had that beautiful time gone where I'd had purpose to fill my everlasting existence and the desire not just for the lust and the lies, but the beauty in protecting something honest? Once I had come to my senses, I knew only then could I care for someone other than myself. The untrustworthy asshole with a craving for vengeance was suddenly swept away when I saw Sookie again for the first time. In turn, losing my memory was the worst, yet exonerating experience of my eleven hundred year existence.

I let out a bit of a huff just as reality settled into me by way of Nora's sniffling. She soon backed off, drying her bloody eyes with the sleeves of her collared shirt and shook her head quite surprisingly with a laugh.

I smiled genuinely her way and she returned a better suited cheery grin. "What now, brother?" she asked with pertinence and arched brows.

I took in a short breath, gazing into her eyes illuminated by the stars above us. "I have something important I need to take care of. If you want to keep running, I'd advise you to leave the state and wait no more than three days for me to contact you."

"And if you don't?" she asked fearfully.

"Then assume I've met the true death," I whispered back to her, agony from the thought apparent in my elongated gaze.

Willingly, Nora decided it was high time for us to take back control over own own existences and put an end to the enigmatic asses whose religion kept them consumed in a devolving world all their own. If I could not save Bill, I would keep him and every chancellor that followed, from the world in a tomb thousands of feet below the concrete. It was an imperfect plan, but one we had both concocted in a moment of desperate last attempts.

As Nora and I passed through the empty streets of Shreveport, suspicion passed through my mind that the war between humans and vampires had begun. Every store, shop, restaurant and bar that wasn't vampire-owned closed after sunset. This meant the mortals were getting smarter and less fearful to drive a stake through the heart of their enemy.

With a prepared mind and Nora at my back, I opened the door and entered Fangtasia, but once I stepped into the center of my former nightclub, any smile that had been present before dropped from my face. As I surveyed the room, the damage was overwhelmingly clear. I then turned my attention toward the stage where my old throne sat crookedly and out of place. Blood and broken glass covered the floor, making it nearly impossible not to step on either of the two. Anger got the better of me and I furiously ripped away from the space, leaving Nora at a standstill.

Zipping into the back, I rattled the doorknob of my office, frustrated that it had been locked from the inside. I rapped on the door a time or two and listened to the silence which followed.

"Pamela? Are you in there?"

The knob clicked before turning and the door cracked open. Tara peeked out from an inch of space, wide eyed and cautious of me.

"E-Eric?" she uttered to me in a shaky voice.

I dropped my stiff shoulders, surprise overtaking me. "Where is Pam?"

Tara lowered her guard and allowed the door to swing open, peering out into the hall just as Nora came into view a distance behind me. "She went and got herself taken by a snarky redheaded bitch from the Authority," Tara answered, concern in her voice. "I think she was trying to find you."

A sharp sneer crossed my lips and I was instantly frozen over with realization. "No," I uttered under my breath.

"Brother?" Nora called to me she approached. "Are you alright?"

"Why would she even..." I asked aloud, but in thought, pausing breifly with my eyes directioned at the floor.

Tara stepped out of the doorway and leaned against the wall in front of me, crossing her arms. "Jess told her where you were. They took her too."

My head shot up and I locked eyes with Tara. "It's just a matter of time before they go after her too," I stated indirectly.

"Sookie," Tara answered like she already knew what I was thinking.

I nodded firmly, determination on my breath. "Then we go and take back Pamela from those cocksuckers and spare them no mercy at the hands of their fucking religion!"

Tara looked at Nora inquisitively, but both agreed simultaneously and I motioned for them to follow me toward the back exit. Within a single heartbeat, we whisked out of the building and back to Bon Temps where this disaster first began.


End file.
